On a mild spring morning in central Seoul this week, a room of academics and lawyers gathered to debate a question: what should South Korea call North Korea?

The task sounds deceptively simple but the answer is far from straightforward, and has provided fodder for columnists in recent years. The answer could even have repercussions for South Korea’s constitutional position.

This linguistic gap stems from South Korea’s view that the entire peninsula is its territory, and that the North is a rebel-held region awaiting reunification, rather than a separate state.

It means South Korea calls its northern neighbour Bukhan (북한), or “north Han”, a variation of how the South refers to itself: Hanguk (한국), meaning “Han nation”, a shortening of Daehan Minguk (대한민국), the Republic of Korea.

However, North Korea calls itself Joseon (조선), a shortened version of Joseon Minjujuui Inmin Gonghwaguk (조선민주주의인민공화국), or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. It has traditionally referred to the South as Namjoseon (남조선), or “south Joseon”.

But this position, rooted in the peninsula’s division and entrenched after the Korean War ended in an armistice in 1953, is now being tested. In recent months, unification minister Chung Dong-young has begun referring to the North by its official name of Joseon Minjujuui Inmin Gonghwaguk.

In January, the minister declared that “the Lee Jae Myung government respects the system of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”. In March, he raised the possibility of calling inter-Korean relations “Han-Jo relations”, or Hanguk-Joseon relations.

His ministry sponsored this week’s conference, a first step in gauging public opinion on whether to adopt the North’s official name.

Kim Nam-jung, the vice-minister, opened the event by saying: “How we call our counterpart shows how we perceive them and what kind of relationship we wish to build.”

He pointed to the experience of divided Germany, where East and West began using each other’s official names after the 1972 Basic Treaty, helping to expand exchanges and ease tensions.

“When language and institutions that recognise and respect the other’s reality are supported,” he said, “we can break the cycle of confrontation and expand the space for peaceful coexistence.”

Since taking office, President Lee Jae Myung has adopted a more conciliatory approach towards North Korea, based on respecting its system, rejecting unification through absorption and avoiding hostile acts. He has said the two sides are “not enemies”.

In practice, the two Koreas already operate as separate states. Both are members of the UN, with different political systems, currencies and passports. Even language has diverged over time.

Supporters of the shift in wording argue that Bukhan itself carries political weight. Kim Sung Kyung, a sociology professor at Sogang University, said calling the North “Bukhan” meant not recognising its statehood as an independent country.

The term, she said, had accumulated “layers of hostility, danger, indifference and hatred” since 1950 in the context of anti-communist ideology. It was difficult to find any logical basis, she added, for arguing that using “Bukhan” for 80 years had helped unification.

The legal implications remain contested. Kwon Eun-min, a lawyer at Kim & Chang, said that calling North Korea by its official name does not automatically constitute recognising it as a state, noting that the two Koreas have used each other’s official names in summits and signed agreements over the decades.

The debate comes against the backdrop of North Korea’s own rhetorical shift. In December 2023, its leader Kim Jong-un declared that North-South relations were no longer those of “fellow countrymen” but of “two hostile states” in a state of war.

Since then, however, Pyongyang has begun calling the South by its official name, Daehan Minguk, or its shortened form, Hanguk, instead of Namjoseon.

But critics have pushed back hard. Song Eon-seok, a senior member of the opposition conservative People Power party, wrote on Facebook that the move was “a clear violation of the constitution” that would mean “recognising the North as a separate, equal state”.

South Korea’s constitution declares in Article 3 that “the territory of the Republic of Korea shall consist of the Korean Peninsula and its adjacent islands”, while Article 4 enshrines a duty of “peaceful unification”. Critics argue that using the North’s official name contradicts both.

Public opinion reflects a generational shift. According to the Korea Institute for National Unification, only 49% of South Koreans now say “unification is necessary” – the lowest level on record.

No decision on the Bukhan vs Joseon debate is imminent. Even the spelling depends on which side you’re on: “Joseon” if you follow South Korea’s romanisation system, “Choson” in North Korean usage. But perhaps that is a debate for another day.